Microsoft working with WhatsApp for notification fix on Windows Phone 8

Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore took the Twitters this morning, which can only mean an announcement or an attempt to calm the throngs of Windows Phone users. Today, it’s the latter as he briefly addressed the ongoing WhatsApp issue with it being removed from the Store recently.

Although brief, Belfiore reassured users that Microsoft is working with WhatsApp to fix an apparently serious notification bug for Windows Phone 8 users with Update 3.

The problem is only for Windows Phone 8, as 8.1 uses a different notification architecture. Belfiore notes:

“For those w Q’s on Whatsapp: they pinged us about an issue that popped on notifications, we’re working with them on a fix. More info soon.

Ps - the notifications core in wp8.1 is different than wp8. The WhatsApp issue is in wp8 upd3. How's your wp8.1 notifications experience?”

Indeed, while the public version of WhatsApp is MIA from the Store, the private beta is still going strong with version 2.11.478 going live this morning for internal testers. Presumably it is there that they’re tweaking notifications for Windows Phone 8 as the beta app gets an update nearly once every 24-48 hours, with no new features in weeks.

No word on an ETA, though Microsoft appears to be trying to grab the bull by the horns on this one. Let’s hope we get an improved experience sooner than later.

They ban any form of communication they can't have control over and therefore may lead to freedom of speech. The "Jewish", "Zionist", "opressive, indecent US" and all that crap they attribute to these forms of communication is merely the excuse (NSA gave them quite a boost though).

There is also the habit of banning anything that's new, due to the reasons explained above. I remember when they used to make propaganda against VHS players, back then. After a while those became pretty common, in everyone's house. Then there was the satellite dish thing, that they used to search buildings for and threw them down the rooftops. Now Rouhani announced more than 70% (close to 80% if I'm not mistaken) of Iranians have satellite dishes and access to thousands of programmes, so according to him it was pointless to fight a certain cultural phenomenon by force from the beginning (that's the good thing about Rouhani, that's why he is a moderate).

Then there is the purposeful limitation on Internet bandwidth (can't get above 256Kbps in your house unless your company makes a formal request that says you need it for work, or that you are a student, etc.) and Rouhani announced he is not satisfied with bandwidth and they are working to get better access on mobile phones too (we now have 3G on phones, but they are not allowed - yet - to enable video calls...but since there is Internet access you can do that with Skype).

I barely need texting in the first place. I havent really posted on facebook in months. I only use Skype once in a blue moon to message a few developers about their apps. The only people I talk to these days are my family, I could probebly live off that $30 per month that they offer at WalMart or something similar.

My internet communication solely consists of /g/ and similar boards, xda-developers, and occasionally here at wpcentral.

Free picture, video and sms....cross platform, with notification of when the other person has received the item-and when they are typing etc.
It's texting for the 21st century. Shame it's now owned by a company that is sh*t at developing mobile apps!

I asked, how do you send a text message without a call plan (i.e., without any credit on your phone, or without a contract).

The simple answer is, you can't. So if you go travelling, you are either going to spend a big chunk of money on doggedly using text messaging....or you're going to use an essentially free messaging service in the form of Whatsapp! No usage limits, no extra charges. 60p a year for unlimited video/audio/text messaging.

For those that live outside of a contigious landmass like the United States, Whatsapp is a real god send. I can travel anywhere in Europe and pay nothing for Whatsapp. & all my friends and family are on it too.

That is why it is so important to the platform...and why it is a huge loss! (American's may not understand to the same extent as you all seem to have unlimited texting plans.....but for everyone else in this world, Whatsapp solves a very real problem)

Have you ever tried getting all your family and friends on another platform? And then have them use it? Who the hell wants to use one platform to talk to everyone, and then another one to talk to ONE GUY, temporarily, just because his Whatsapp isn't working? Nobody.

Seriously, you're dense. The first guy was saying how Whatsapp is free and everyone he knows uses it, you chime in and for pretty much no reason throw out a list of alternatives to which I said they were not as convenient due to their relative lack of ubiquity. What's the problem?

+1020!
I gave up trying to talk sense into Guilliams. He seems to think the world will turn on its axis and choose a different messaging system just because Windows Phone users can't use Whatsapp.

The truth is, if Windows Phone doesn't have Whatsapp for an extended period of time, then new users to the platform will return their phones and go with something else. Whether Guilliams accepts that is besides the point. Whatsapp is a make or break app...

I don't have Line, Webchat, Facebook Messenger or Kik. I did TRY Line and Kik, but there was nobody on it I knew. Viber is the same....I think I have about a half dozen people on there.

Skype is NOT a substitute for Whatsapp. It is a VoIP product, with a pretty poor instant messaging option tacked on. It also requires that I get the username for each of my contacts in order to message them.

With Whatsapp, I save a persons number....no matter what nationality....and they pop up! It's the simplicity of it that makes it a must have. Why don't you try it out?! Oh no, you can't...because it isn't available on Windows Phone! Whoops

You seem to think that company priorities will remain the same....
Facebook don't even build their own dedicated Facebook apps. So it surprises me little that their newly acquired companies are dropping the ball when it comes to Whatsapp support for example...

well it costs money... so it's not completely free... it's $1 for a year :) or am I wrong? even skype is more free and kik (eww) and Line (which is more crossplatform since it has a win8/PC and osx client)

Sorry, but 60 pence per year is not a barrier to use. Whatsapp saves you having to buy a call plan...it also works extremely well, and everyone has it. All those other options you mention are just playing the free card to try and gain market share. They are irrelevant though...

I was being facetious. I don't know anyone that doesn't have a sim card in their mobile phone with at least 10 pence of call credit :).

Let's include that into the bargain. 60p for a years Whatsapp service, and 10p for a text message to activate :). 70p is pretty good value to me!

(On a slightly different note,, the world today seems to assume everything is going to be free...as if there is no inherent cost involved in making such stuff free! Google's products are littered with advertising and trample on our rights to privacy....but they are free, so let's all buy them!! Give me a paid product model any day!)

Imagine if you will working at a regional location that has NO cell phone coverage at all, BUT the company you work for has WiFi capability. Skype, WhatsApp, Viber etc is the only way I can receive quick and easy txt info (other than email) using my mobile phone. I can even use my mobile phone to call people without having cell coverage. That's extremely helpful for the likes of people in my shoes or wish to save money as there is an allocation of data you get usually with your monthly phone bill.

There are some places in the world that have no mobile coverage, let alone as others have already brought up, you can freely text message friends and family internationally (without paying $2 each SMS from Australia to the UK for instance), for free.

Now do you get the idea of these wonderful apps and how we rely on them to work without hiccups.

Personally I can't wait for the WhatsApp updates to finally roll out to users.

I'ld love to know how to get onto the private beta program for WhatsApp... anyone know?

Here's a pro tip...don't read what you want to read, read what is actually written!
Where did I say I dissuaded (her) from buying a Lumia?! FYI, we message a lot via Whatsapp...so to recommend her a phone that doesn't currently have it. Well that would be a real good suggestion (I'd be shooting myself in the foot with that one!).
So yes, don't moan at me. It's Microsoft that should have put this fire out before Whatsapp felt that they had to pull the app from the store. I am not one of their sales reps - I recommend devices on the strngth of what I see before me. & quite honestly, issues like this make me assess my view that WP is the platform for me.

I agree. I talked with a guy today who returned his Nokia Lumia 520 and got a Moto G because the Nokia didn't have whatsapp. This whatsapp issue is hurting phone sales and the windows phone platform image.

It is actually.. I'm from Himachal (India). One of my friend was almost ready to buy a 720 but then woalaaa!!! Sine one said WhatsApp is no longer in wp devices..... As a result he bought a mota g instead..

Because for many of us, Whatsapp is THE most used app on our phones. This is a communication device after all - and at present, it is missing the most popular text messaging platform on the planet.
You may not use Whatsapp. You may not care. But a 450 million user base says Whatsapp is important.

It's coming back? IT'S COMING BACK?!!! That's the whole issue here, this is already way too long so we are sick and tired of hearing that 'it's coming back'. This should have been a problem that should have taken 3 days max to fix, hell even those 3 days is just way too long in this internet age and I keep saying if this was on iOS or Android this would have NEVER been an issue in the first place. I love Windows Phone, my WhatsApp is working fine but lord have mercy this is seriously hurting Windows Phone, they were even having a discussion on the radio here in South Africa about this and they had the wrong information that WhatsApp may NEVER return to Windows Phone, now you have the wrong information being broadcast on national radio to the masses that should be adopting Windows Phone as their first smartphone. I CAN'T

If it were gone forever, maybe we could consider it an issue, but it's coming back. Do people just have zero patience anymore? Is this really such a big deal that people would avoid the platform altogether? Seriously need a reality check around here.

Well hopefully once the notification issue is fixed on the wp8 update 3 version they can sort it out on the wp8.1 version as well, still getting delayed or no notifications, and support tells me that they are working on their wp8.1 version at the moment :/

Whatsapp wasn't really optimized for 8.1 though. Notifications don't always clear in action center, notifications are one line with group info, person who send the text and the text itself, so you can never read it. The text has to be in the 3th row so you know what the text is about

Funny how a US company bought WhatsApp and now we (the rest of the world) have to deal with this incompetence, arrogance and total ignorance for anything that is outside the US it's bad enough that we have to suffer with not having a proper Facebook app for WP but hey it's just the evils of Facebook in their master plan on being the sole ruler of whatever it is they are trying to control.

Any crap..it is also with wp 8.1..i am facing it since a long time..and even now i am facing it..whatsapp really sucks..i am using wp8.1 preview..and having d same notification problem since a lng tym..

Thank goodness. Maybe it will silence all these drama monkeys who have been running around screaming "The sky is falling"! You can relax now, kiddies. Your Uncle Joe has confirmed that its coming back, since you wouldn't believe the people who actually develop the app. *smh*

Before you get on your high horse...consider this;
There are 450 million active Whatsapp users. Windows Phone at the moment is the ONLY platform where it isn't possible to download and use it right now.
Even Nokia Asha's are better supported!
It may not be a big issue to you...but this is going to have a big impact the longer it goes on. Who gives a damn about Cortana and whatever else if the core smartphone experience is absent.

IT'S COMING BACK - END OF STORY. IT'S NOT GOING AWAY FOREVER, IT'S ONLY TEMPORARY. SERIOUSLY, PEOPLE NEED TO CHILL OUT ABOUT THIS. THE WORLD HAS NOT ENDED!! AND IT IS NOT PART OF THE "CORE" SMARTPHONE EXPERIENCE, IT'S NOT PART OF THE OS.

I think you need to chill out as well pal, i'm not saying people over reacting over this were right, but you're not doing much better spamming the same stuff all over this comment section. You made your point. Move on.

I'm using WP8.1 on my L620. Today I woke up with literally hundreds of unread messages in the Whatsapp that never showed up in the notification. This has happened to me a few times now but I at first I just thought it might be a problem with the WP8.1

They have different colors representing different recipients in a chat group,while we have all the same bubble colors. The messages layout UI are more pleasant to the eyes while ours are like over enlarged bubble and taking up lots of unnecessary spaces? And on Android, there are much lesser useless animations than the one on WP when opening messages, etc. Bottom line, WP version is just bad.

I believe the rush of complains is more about a community getting tired of asking faster response from developers to get WP apps to the same level than Android/iOS:
Facebook, Instagram (BETA lasting like forever with no updates), WhatsApp, Spotify for example lack of features that are available on others platforms, and many still wonder if King games as well as Google apps will be ever available.

Don't get me wrong, I know that Microsoft has nothing to do with this, but the regular user won't think "Ok, since this isn't Microsoft fault I will give it a go", they'll buy an Android-based smartphone to avoid this kind of issues, period.

Exactly! Consumers will not give a chance to WP at all when they are getting new phones because of the serious lack of quality and quantity of apps. Yes, apps are catching up on WP but from what I see, developers or companies of those official apps are not even giving good attention to them. On Android, I have been receiving updates regularly for Tunein, Whatsapp, Shazam, Speedtest, Instagram, Box, Flickr, etc etc. But everything is so qiuet on Windows Phone! Till now, I have not receive any updates about getting bugs fixed for Tunein on WP!

I really don't see how well WP will go although WP has a good face lift for WP8.1. Not much consumers will even bother to look at WP at all.

Skype and Facebook are pretty ropey....no one uses Google Hangouts! & what kind of an instant messaging system is that where you are advocating using a web browser!! Haha...
Whatsapp is important to lots of people outside the US. It is the de facto text messaging platform. If Windows Phone doesn't have it, then it is kind of a dead sales prospect. No salesperson in their right mind would sell a smartphone in the UK market that didn't have Whatsapp!

Getting really tired how every core app -fb/whatsapp/twitter and so on - sucks on windows phone.
MS, just give each of them a billion and let them make perfect apps. Without these you'll never ever grow strong!!!!

After reading some of the comments on this article, I couldn't stop laughing, I find it funny how WA gets taken down from the store so they can do a major bug fix, and after 2-4 days most people are having a rage about it.... XD for example "a smartphone without whatsapp, not very smart" xD I don't think anyone goes to buy a smartphone and looks at a selection thinking 'i want one that supports whatsapp...' Every1 should chill out and grow some patience... It would probs be back in a few days... Lol

I have heard dozens of reports from people who quit buying WP and went for Android because Whatsapp was not available. And remember we don't know when soon is, Flipboard was coming "soon" and it's been a year.

WhatsApp replaces text messaging for a lot of people now, myself included to a large extent. Many of my friends only use WhatsApp now. Thus, for those people, it is like buying a phone that doesn't text. It is a big deal in that regard. I get what you're saying about it coming back soon and why it isn't the end of the world; but there is still a lot of uncertainty around. We are guessing that it'll be back in short order, and I imagine it will, but no one really knows when that will be. If I had no allegiance or fiscal investment in this platform and was looking for a new phone, I might look somewhere else as well; for the time being.

In emerging markets like the ones here in South Africa having WhatsApp on a phone is a big deal. Here we have uneducated people and people who are not tech savvy but these two types of people know this: Nokia (brand loyalty) WhatsApp (cheap alternative to expensive SMS as carriers/networks make most of their money from SMS) now people don't earn much here but the little they can afford to buy airtime to load up onto their phones WhatsApp plays a significant role in making that airtime worthwhile and last longer, now this is not only an Africa problem this is important in other markets where people just can't afford contracts and you just won't believe how WhatsApp had changed many peoples live here in Africa heck my mom and gran use to struggle using SMS/Text service but now they are hooked on WhatsApp

"probs be back in a few days" your wild guesses perhaps? Not even Joe is giving a confirmed date. Are you so optimistic about it? Not me. Why can't Whatsapp and MS get the bugs fixed without taking down the app from the store? New buyers joining WP will get very pissed with this. And yes, smartphone without Whatsapp nowadays is considered as a phone without a text messaging function aka useless. Perhaps you are not a heavy Whatsapp user, but others are.

I have an 820 running Black and WhatsApp works fine on my phone. I don't understand the error is it phone specific? I have a Lumia 520 running 8.1, and that has problems with WhatsApp notifs. Have they got it upside down or have I? :/

Personally, I was having intermittent problems with it on a 920. It would randomly stop pushing for indiscriminate chunks of time, then I'd get a pack of messages all at once. Sometimes it wouldn't happen for weeks, then it would happen 10x a day. Can't explain it. This was on regular WP8.

My friend was going to buy a WP, but she heard there was no WhatsApp on WP so she is kinda skeptical as to which device she buys now. She wants WP, but with no WhatsApp she's not willing to make the jump, especially since there's no date for its return...

Like someone said the other day, they probably delisted the app from store since their ratings had gone down to 3 stars. Whereas they enjoy a high rating on other platforms. So the idea could be to start afresh? WP 8.1 will get a lot of new adopters and a 3 star rated Whatsapp would stick out like a sore thumb, pulling their impression down.

Currently, the push notifications and receiving messages on the app are happening on 2 different channels. The push notifications come from MS servers, while message are coming from Whatsapp server directly. I think that's why notifications are not working well sometimes. I really hope both of the events are coming from Whatsapp directly, just like on Android / iOS. MS push notifications are always a screwed up.

People who already installed watsapp , there are still using it ...how its possible ...?..if it is taken how they are able to work with it ?.....without WhatsApp we are finding difficult to communicate with our loved ones .......please solve this problem as soon as possible